Murder retrial now heads to the jury
A man serving as his own attorney closed by citing testimony from 2002 that these jurors never heard.
Delivering his closing argument yesterday, Miguel Figueroa carefully picked through the evidence against him, pointing out "substantial holes" in the case.
As he spoke, there was a sense of déjà vu in the Camden courtroom.
Not only had Figueroa already been convicted once of raping and killing 13-year-old Shaline Seguinot - the conviction was overturned on appeal - but Figueroa, serving as his own attorney, appeared to be relying heavily on the transcript of his first trial to craft his defense.
His opening arguments last week closely echoed the words of his public defender in the first trial. Then, in his closing, Figueroa referred to witnesses from the first trial who did not testify this time.
Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Greg Smith told the jurors he did not raise an objection to Figueroa's mentioning the witnesses because he did not want to interrupt the flow of the closing statement.
Then he reminded jurors of the DNA evidence left in the body of Shaline Seguinot that he said matched Figueroa with 1-in-42-trillion certainty. The jury will begin deliberating today. Figueroa is charged with first-degree murder and other charges.
Seguinot disappeared on Aug. 4, 1995, while taking a five-minute ride on a borrowed bicycle. Her nude body was found three days later. She had been sexually assaulted, stabbed and dumped behind the Pyne Poynt Family School in North Camden.
Figueroa, 36, was arrested in 2000, when he was living in Florida under an alias. He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison, but the conviction was overturned in 2005.
He said yesterday - as he did in his opening statement - that prosecutors assumed that one person raped and killed Seguinot. Although he did not say that he had consensual sex with Seguinot, that was the implication of his argument.
But Smith told the jury that Seguinot did not have sex - that she had been raped. And only the rapist would have killed her, he said.
"Can you honestly believe that a 13-year-old homebody on a five-minute bike ride would spontaneously decide to have sex with this defendant?" Smith asked. "Of course not. . . . There was no consensual sex in this case."